“No, I have no regrets,” Huckabee told reporters after meeting with the executive council of the AFL-CIO at a labor-owned confernce center here. “I feel like I spoke the truth. I still feel like I’m speaking truth. And the overwhelming response I’ve had, even from Israel, has been very affirmative.”

Huckabee has been under fire all week for saying the deal the Obama administration deal would “basically” lead Israelis to “the door of the oven.”

The former Arkansas governor has been roundly scolded by Jewish groups, and the Israeli ambassador to the United States said his comments were not appropriate. Meanwhile, Democrats including President Obama and Hillary Clinton have also strongly condemned Huckabee’s comments.

But none of that has dissuaded Huckabee. “I didn’t say what I said because I thought it was going to be popular or unpopular. I said it because I believed it. And I still believe it,” he said.

“I fell like the graphic language was appropriate, consistent with the language that [Iranian leaders] themselves have employed in order to talk about Israel and the United States,” he said. “And I think Americans and the rest of the world need to be very clear that accommodating this regime, in Iran, is very akin to accommodating the regime 70 years ago, and it was a disastrous failure.”

Huckabee was the only Republican to meet with the AFL-CIO, a fact he touted Wednesday.